On the Tuesday before Easter, it is tradition in France that the Easter bells fly from their steeples and go to Rome. The Easter Bells return on Easter Sunday bringing Easter eggs to everyone's gardens.
This seems so hard to believe. I mean, at least with the Easter bunny, you can pretend it comes in the night and leaves you treats from it's basket. It's not to be viewed by the kiddos as they should be fast asleep. But how do you pretend the Easter bells are flying to Rome and back for five days when they are most likely still hanging in their steeples? How do French parents explain this to their children? Is it like the mall Santas being declared "Santas helpers?" Do the bells have helpers to take their place in the steeple while en route to Rome for the goodies? And why go to Rome? Wouldn't you think Switzerland would be a more likely candidate with the famous Swiss chocolatiers? And just how do those bells carry eggs back from Rome? I have questions. An Easter bunny is much more believable and cute and makes for great clipart in newspaper ads, right? I'm kidding of course. I suppose some think it's strange to think a bunny would bring eggs to the kiddos too.
I first heard about the Easter bells of France while enjoying
David Sedaris book of essays, "Me Talk Pretty One Day." This excerpt is from the essay "Jesus Shaves."
[instructor] "And what does one do on Easter? Would anyone like to tell us?"The Italian nanny was attempting to answer the question when the Moroccan student interrupted, shouting, "Excuse me, but what's an Easter?"Despite her having grown up in a Muslim country, it seemed she might have heard it mentioned once or twice, but no. "I mean it," she said. "I have no idea what you people are talking about."The teacher then called upon the rest of us to explain.The Poles led the charge to the best of their ability. "It is," said one, "a party for the little boy of God who call his self Jesus and . . . oh, sh*t."She faltered, and her fellow countryman came to her aid."He call his self Jesus, and then he be die one day on two . . . morsels of . . . lumber."The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm."He die one day, and then he go above of my head to live with your father.""He weared the long hair, and after he died, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples.""He nice, the Jesus.""He make the good things, and on the Easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today."Part of the problem had to do with grammar. Simple nouns such as cross and resurrection were beyond our grasp, let alone such complicated reflexive phrases as "To give of yourself your only begotten son." Faced with the challenge of explaining the cornerstone of Christianity, we did what any self-respecting group of people might do. We talked about food instead."Easter is a party for to eat of the lamb," the Italian nanny explained. "One, too, may eat of the chocolate.""And who brings the chocolate?" the teacher asked.I knew the word, and so I raised my hand, saying, "The Rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate."My classmates reacted as though I'd attributed the delivery to the Antichrist. They were mortified."A rabbit?" The teacher, assuming I'd used the wrong word, positioned her index fingers on top of her head, wiggling them as though they were ears. "You mean one of these? A rabbit rabbit?""Well, sure," I said. "He come in the night when one sleep on a bed. With a hand he have the basket and foods."The teacher sadly shook her head, as if this explained everything that was wrong with my country. "No, no," she said. "Here in France the chocolate is brought by the big bell that flies in from Rome."I called for a time-out. "But how do the bell know where you live?""Well," she said, "how does a rabbit?"It was a decent point, but at least a rabbit has eyes. That's a start. Rabbits move from place to place, while most bells can only go back and forth--and they can't even do that on their own power. On top of that, the Easter Bunny has character; he's someone you'd like to meet and shake hands with. A bell has all the personality of a cast-iron skillet. It's like saying that come Christmas, a magic dustpan flies in from the North Pole, led by eight flying cinder blocks. Who wants to stay up all night so they can see a bell? And why fly one in from Rome when they've got more bells than they know what to do with right here in Paris? That's the most implausible aspect of the whole story, as there's no way the bells of France would allow a foreign worker to fly in and take their jobs. That Roman bell would be lucky to get work cleaning up after a French bell's dog -and even then he'd need papers. It just didn't add up.Nothing we said was of any help to the Moroccan student. A dead man with long hair supposedly living with her father, a leg of lamb served with palm fronds and chocolate. Confused and disgusted, she shrugged her massive shoulders and turned her attention back to the comic book she kept hidden beneath her binder. I wondered then if, without the language barrier, my classmates and I could have done a better job making sense of Christianity, an idea that sounds pretty far-fetched to begin with.In communicating any religious belief, the operative word is faith, a concept illustrated by our very presence in that classroom. Why bother struggling with the grammar lessons of a six-year-old if each of us didn't believe that, against all reason, we might eventually improve? If I could hope to one day carry on a fluent conversation, it was a relatively short leap to believing that a rabbit might visit my home in the middle of the night, leaving behind a handful of chocolate kisses and a carton of menthol cigarettes. So why stop there? If I could believe in myself, why not give other improbabilities the benefit of the doubt? I accepted the idea that an omniscient God had cast me in his own image and that he watched over me and guided me from one place to the next. The virgin birth, the resurrection, and the countless miracles -my heart expanded to encompass all the wonders and possibilities of the universe.A bell, though, that's f*ed up.
• In September of 2006 he secretly placed a black hooded, orange jumpsuit clad figure of a Guantanamo Bay detainee on the grounds of Disneyworld in Los Angeles. Placed within the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride, it stayed for 90 minutes before the ride was stopped and it was removed. more 
• Also in September of 2006, Banksy replaced 500 of Paris Hilton's debut CD's with his own remixes with titles such as "Why am I Famous?", "What Am I For?" and "What Have I Done?". The CD's were switched out in several record shops across the UK with their original barcode in place so they could be purchased without realizing the change had been made. He also replaced the CD cover artwork with that of a woman with a dog's head. more 
• In the July of 2005 Banksy created nine paintings on the Palestinian side of Israel's West Bank 425 mile long concrete barrier wall. The images speak for themselves. more 
• In March, 2005 he smuggled his creations into four highly guarded New York museums and hung his own paintings in each. Some artwork went undetected for days. Banksy was quoted as saying "Obviously, they've got their eye a lot more on things leaving than things going in, which works in my favour." more 
• And just this week an original piece of Banksy artwork fetched a record breaking £288,000 ($500,000+ US). This final price was 20 times the estimated auction value and was paid by a telephone bidder from the U.S. The piece, titled "Space Girl and Bird" is painted on a piece of steel and was commissioned by the band "Blur" for their "Think Tank" album cover. more 
